Re: State capitalism?

[malecki@xxxxxxxxxx (Robert Malecki)]

>On Wed, 19 Jun 1996, Adam Rose wrote:
>
>>
>> I think what determined the difference was the extent to which there was
>> a real independent capitalist class existing before the revolution. This
>> certainly explains the difference between India + Egypt on the one hand
>> and Cuba on the other. Algeria, I can't comment.
>>
>
>Louis: There was as much of a "real independent capitalist class in Cuba
>before the revolution" as there was in any Latin American or Central
>American nation. These capitalist classes have on occasion used the power
>of the state to commandeer, nationalize and exploit sectors of the
>domestic economy for the benefit of the national bourgeoisie as a whole.
>The Venezuelan and Mexican capitalist class has nationalized oil fields in
>the past. In some cases, mines were taken over under the pressure of
>working-class mobilization or electoral victories such as the kind
>that took place in Bolivia in the 1950s, or Chile in the 1970s.
>
>However, it was only in Cuba that the capitalist class *as a class* was
>expropriated. The measures of the Cuban government were not undertaken to
>help Cuban capitalism gain an advantage over its rivals. They were, on the
>other hand, identical to the measures taken by the Bolsheviks in power.
>The commanding heights of the Cuban and Russian economy became the
>collective property of society. The Russian bourgeoisie lost everything,
>as did the Cuban bourgeoisie. The counter-revolution that was mobilized
>derived its fury from the collective will of the world capitalist class as
>a whole to re-gain lost property.
>
>Nothing like this ever happened to Egypt, India, or Algeria. The
>radical measures taken in these countries were meant primarily to help
>consolidate a national bourgeoisie that had been thwarted by imperialism
>and colonialism. That is why it has been possible for Nasser, Nehru and
>Boumidienne to develop all sorts of relationships with the West after the
>initial de-colonizing moment.
>
>Lumping Cuba in with these radical, nationalist regimes shows how
>difficult it is to make use of "state capitalism" as a general theory.
>Vladimir Bilenkin made the crucial point that it fails to explain the
>very real conflicts between a Yeltsin and a Zyuganov, which reflect in
>a very muted way conflicts between the Russian working-class and
>Western capitalism. It also fails to make any sense of the tensions in
>Cuba today between neo-NEPmen and the industrial working-class.
>
>You draw a distinction between all of these various "capitalisms" and a
>"socialism" that existed for less than a decade in the USSR in the 1920s.
>With such broad distinctions in place, there is not much work left for
>Marxist analysis to do. Just hold the country in question (Cuba, Algeria,
>etc.) up against this basically abstract model and draw a conclusion based
>on whether it conforms or not. This is not a Marxist approach. It is
>formal and schematic.

Louis is completely correct on this stuff. The state capitalists allah
"Adam" put it all in one bag and throw it out the window...

malecki in exile..




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